


Fingers

by ckret2



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16924932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: The genesis of Zim’s madness, as caused by two spare fingers and one numb antenna. Or: why he totally had four fingers in the first episode but then there were only three.





	Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr's freaking out, time to mirror everything to AO3. This was originally posted in 2014. I don't believe that in the show itself Zim actually went from 4 fingers down to 3—I think they just changed their minds on how Irkens were gonn be animated—but somebody asked me "BUT WHAT IF" and I was like "I CAN WRITE A FIC ON THAT!"

"Welcome to life, Irken Child. Report for duty."

The child has four fingers on each hand. It doesn’t think to count them, although the brand new I.D. Pak on its back, fresh from the factory, gives the child the ability to count them if it wishes. But it doesn’t have to. It can feel its fingers, pressed against the cold metal arm that blessed it with life. It can feel its fingers flapping through the air as it waves to all the sleeping little faces on the wall in front of it, the same way it can feel a cool breeze blowing over its left antenna. It can feel its fingers as it reaches up to see if it only has one antenna; no, it has two. The right one is just numb. It knows it has four fingers on each hand and one numb antenna before it even has a name.

"You are two minutes old, little smeet."

Its eight fingers press against the smooth, soft seat below it, still warm from its last occupants, as it looks around the room with wide-eyed wonder. Both its antenna twitch and sway, even though only the left one can smell the room and hear the voice. It’s ready—this perfect little smeet with its perfect little body, two legs for running and two arms for waving and eight fingers for holding and two antenna, one for hearing and one for decoration, and two eyes and a mouth and an I.D. Pak. Its body is functional, solid, strong. Its body is perfect. It’s ready to report for duty.

"Prepare to be filled with the whole of Irken knowledge!"

Its body wasn’t perfect anymore.

Each nanosecond was an encyclopedia. More files in its I.D. Pak than cells in its brain, more bytes in its personality than molecules in its body. Small towns, alien insects, cosmetics companies, Vortian counties, executed communist parties, statistics for long-abolished sports teams, the census of a conquered village, dead philosophers, mathematical video games, ancient metaphysical scientists, retired captains, vintage cruisers, warships that had never seen combat, people who had shared the same name, remakes of foreign mockumentaries with different endings, Conventian laws against importing addictive snack toppings, whole cities that had been demolished to create a vast spaceport, religious sites that were reduced to gimmicky tourist destinations, tall Irkens who had been made governors of alien worlds, lawyers who fought for alien rights, concentration camps full of lawyers who fought for alien rights, lighthouses used to warn vehicles they were getting too close to water, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Vortian fish, train engines

Each nanosecond was a millennium. More lives in its I.D. Pak than atoms in its body. And its body wasn’t perfect anymore.

It had too many fingers. Polydactyly, congenital physical anomaly, supernumerary body parts, postaxial, metacarpophalangeal joint. One of its antenna was nonfunctional. Hearing impairment, hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy, unilateral anosmia, vestibulopathy, superior canal dehiscence syndrome. His body was flawed. He was defective. Defective Irkens were killed.

He was only two minutes old. He didn’t want to die.

The machine that fed him information could take information back as well. That was how defects were discovered. The information was read in their I.D. Paks. The machine could find out he was imperfect and kill him if it read the information in his Pak. So he deleted it. The knowledge of his extra fingers: deleted. The sensation of numbness at the top right of his head: deleted. But the knowledge came back, he could still feel those extra fingers, still feel the imbalance in his antennae. Deleted again. Deleted. Deleted.  _Deleted_.

He didn’t have to count his fingers to know. He was self-aware of them anyway.

He deleted his self-awareness. For a moment it is insentient. But the computer recognized the bug and reuploaded self-awareness into the Pak. Deleted. Deleted. Every time it was deleted, the computer reuploaded it. So  _modify_ it. At two minutes old he frantically tore apart and restructured his self-awareness, rebuilding the way he saw himself so he could still  _see himself_ without noticing the glaring flaws.

The data kept coming in. Subterranean rivers, patron saints of religions that no one cared about anymore, a mysterious gladiator who had only fought two battles, self-titled music albums, books by aliens that were actually still alive. He questioned why he was so fearfully modifying his own I.D. Pak so soon after getting it, remembered he was defective, and deleted that knowledge. He questioned why he was so fearfully modifying his own I.D. Pak so soon after getting it, couldn’t remember the answer, and so in fear deleted the knowledge that he had modified it at all. He questioned why he was deleting things when the computer was still trying to upload the whole of Irken knowledge, couldn’t remember, and so deleted the knowledge that Zim had ever deleted anything at all. Zim slew inconvenient questions, lobotomized his personality, shot down internal error codes and external requests for information. Zim lied to the computer that everything was fine, came up with the codes to convince it that there was nothing wrong, carry on as normal, there is nothing wrong with this I.D. Pak. All driven by an instinct that came from his body but that now dominated his I.D. Pak, a directive to  _live_ , no matter what happens  _live_ , and if he had to blind  _himself_ to his true nature to live then he would.

The data that flowed into his I.D. Pak was slashed, hacked, glitched, and burned. Damaged in a newborn child’s panicked attempts at self-defense.

"Upload complete!"

Zim was two minutes and four seconds old.

"You have been given a name. Identify yourself!"

Zim’s body was perfect.

xxx

There were close calls.

Sitting alone in the soldier trainees’ mess hall, holding a candy bar in one hand, staring in amazement at his own hand wrapped around the bar because he had never once before, in his entire life, realized that he had an extra finger. He checked his other hand and found one there too. He wiggled his spare pinkies, and they felt natural, as if they’d always been there. But no Irkens had spare fingers. He’d never _seen_ hands like this before. How had he not noticed this long? Was there something _wrong_ with his hands? Something wrong with his  _body?_ Was he defec—? Somebody dropped a tray, he looked up and completely forgot about his spare fingers, the factoid oozing out of short-term memory and never finding a home in the long-term.

There were always close calls.

"Hey, Zim, why do you have extra fingers?"

"YOU LIE!  _You liiie!_  ZIM has no extra ANYTHING!” He was self-unaware enough not to notice his own fingers. He didn’t bother to count.

There were so many close calls.

Standing in a group, antennae twitching in agitation, wondering why he could hear the Irken chattering on his left but not the one on his right, wondering why his left one could feel a breeze but the right couldn’t—but of course  _Zim was perfect_ , so the breeze had to be aimed at his left antenna, and the person to his right obviously spoke too quietly. He compensated by wordlessly sliding over so that both speakers were on his left. That way the quiet speaker was now closer to Zim, and he would be able to hear better.

Close calls; but his unconscious drive to live was stronger than his conscious curiosity. And he convinced everyone from fellow smeets to massive Control Brains that there was nothing wrong with him.

At least as far as his body was concerned.

xxx

Zim was sitting alone in the human Skool cafeteria, holding a plastic spork in one hand, staring in amazement at his own hand wrapped around the spork because he had never once before, in his entire life, realized that he had an extra finger. He checked his other hand and found one there too. He wiggled his spare pinkies, and they felt natural, as if they’d always been there. But no Irkens had spare fingers. He’d never  _seen_ hands like this until he came to Earth, until he saw the humans—

His gaze snapped up, and scanned over the crowd. The  _humans_. The humans with their horrible many-fingered hands—and now  _his_ looked the  _same!_ So grotesque! So ugly! He’d  _caught_ something from them, something that had caused this  _growth_ , there was no other way! And this, this thought wasn’t deleted; this one was safe. This one wouldn’t lead Zim to realize he was defective.

Something had to be done about the growths; but what? He could leave them, let that aid his disguise, let his hands look more human. But no, no. What if the infection spread? What if it transformed him? (His survival instincts would let him identify the fingers as invasive growths; but his survival instincts wouldn’t let him  _accept_ them.) He wiggled his fingers again. They looked so natural. So fluid. As if they’d been there his whole life.

He had to get rid of them.

xxx

“ _Zim?!_ " Dib leaned over his desk to get a better look as his nemesis entered the classroom. "Where have you…" He trailed off, and looked Zim over, puzzled. "What  _happened_ to you? You look half dead.”

Zim was pale, and trembling. Green blood dripped down the sides of his hands. Toilet paper was wrapped around his palms and wrists, soaked emerald, and on each glove an empty, useless flap of fabric, built for fingers that no longer existed, lay flat.

"Nothing has happened to me. I am at the pinnacle of physical health." Through the wooziness of blood loss, he managed a grin. "Zim’s body is  _perfect_.”

As it had always been.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/93189563452/you-were-asking-for-invader-zim-prompts-so-i-have).


End file.
